Ruling — Lost Ruins of Arnak

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Lost Ruins of Arnakbg-312484-en-1e

To play, follow these procedures:

**Setup**

1. Each player chooses a color and takes a player board, research tokens, 2 archaeologist figures, and 4 basic cards in that color.[1]

2. Create a starting deck for each player by adding 2 Fear cards to their 4 basic cards, then shuffle the deck and place it face down on the player board.[1]

3. Place research tokens on a starting space below the research track.[1]

4. The starting player is the one who most recently traveled to a place they had never visited before; give this player the starting player marker.[1]

5. Play proceeds clockwise.[1]

**On Your Turn**

1. You must perform exactly one main action per turn.[2] Options for your main action include: DIG AT A SITE, DISCOVER A NEW SITE, OVERCOME A GUARDIAN, BUY A CARD, PLAY A CARD, RESEARCH, or PASS.[2]

2. You may perform any number of free actions before, during, or after your main action.[3][2] Free actions include playing cards marked with the free action icon, putting an idol in a slot, and using a guardian's boon (except for the assistant that lets you buy a card with a discount).[4][3]

3. If you choose to PASS, you inform other players you will take no more turns this round; passing counts as your main action and you must also use any remaining free actions.[5] It is illegal to take a turn using only free actions without a main action.[5]

4. If you choose to PLAY A CARD, you can play it for its travel value or for its effect, but not both.[4][2] Playing an artifact requires paying a special cost.[4][6] When played, the card goes face up into your play area.[4]

5. If you choose to DISCOVER A NEW SITE, traverse the wilderness and pay the depicted cost.[7] Choose an undiscovered site in that region and pay the travel cost to move an archaeologist from your board to that site's space.[7] Take the idol and resolve its effect.[7] Finally, take the top tile from the stack matching the site type, place it on the board face up, and draw a tile from the guardian stack to place on the site.[7]

6. If you choose to PASS and are the only player left who has not passed, you may take multiple turns in a row.[5]

**End of Round**

1. The round ends when all players have passed.[5]

2. To set up for the next round (if it is not the end of round V):

* Adjust the card row.[5]

* Return both archaeologists to your player board.[5]

* Add 1 Fear card to your play area for each time an archaeologist was taken back from a site with a guardian.[5]

* Discard remaining cards in hand to your play area or save them for the next round.[5]

* Gather all cards in your play area, shuffle them thoroughly, and place them face down on the bottom of your deck (items bought during the round will be placed above these shuffled cards).[5][3]

* Refresh assistants.[5]

* Exile the two cards on either side of the moon staff.[5]

* Move the moon staff to the right to indicate the next round number.[5]

* Refill the card row.[5]

* Move the starting player marker one place to the left.[5]

3. Start the new round by drawing until you have a full hand of 5 cards (if your deck lacks enough cards, draw them all).[5]

4. At the end of round V, take back all archaeologists and gain Fear from guardians, then proceed to final scoring.[5]

[1] RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook · p.6 · Player Setup · Player Board · Your Starting Deck · Play Order · Starting Resources · RECOMMENDED TABLE LAYOUT · …

[2] RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook · p.8 · Your Turn · Main Actions · Your Hand · TRAVEL VALUE · EFFECT · FREE ACTIONS · …

[3] RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook · p.23 · Frequently Asked Questions · Shorthand Notation · Free Actions

[4] RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook · p.13 · Play a Card · To Play a Card · EXILE

[5] RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook · p.17 · We have discovered such wonders today! Who knows what we sha find tomorrow? · Setup for Next Round · All players simultaneously do the following: · The card row should be adjusted as follows: · End of Round V

[6] RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook · p.13 · PLAYING ARTIFACT CARDS

[7] RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook · p.10 · Discover a New Site · To Discover a New Site

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 93 ms · ask 8503 ms · total 8597 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 8597 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 8, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "Day 8 - Though our eagerness to begin is mixed with a certain amount of trepidation, now is not the time to let our courage fail. If there are dangers, we, we came here to confront them. To the jungle then, and no delay! On your turn, you have several options. Your choices will depend on the cards ", "headingPath": "Your Turn · Main Actions · Your Hand · TRAVEL VALUE · EFFECT · FREE ACTIONS · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.048652, "snippet": "Day 13 - Ruby is a jaunty bird and I am glad we have her. She finds the most interesting things. Play the card from your hand face up into your play area. Resolve the card's effect. The card remains face up in your play area for the remainder of the round (unless you get a chance to exile it, as exp", "headingPath": "Play a Card · To Play a Card · EXILE", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}, {"page": 17, "score": 0.046875, "snippet": "On your turn, you can choose to pass - inform the other players that you will take no more turns this round. Passing counts as your main action for the turn. At this time, you should also use up any free actions you still have available. If you take no other main action, then you must pass. It is no", "headingPath": "We have discovered such wonders today! Who knows what we sha find tomorrow? · Setup for Next Round · All players simultaneously do the following: · The card row should be adjusted as follows: · End of Round V", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.046452, "snippet": "Day 6 - We found a good place to pitch our tents, with fresh water nearby. Our quartermaster has ensured we wi be we supplied. For the fortnight, this sha be our home. Each player should choose a color and take the player board, research tokens, 2 archaeologist figures, and 4 basic cards in that ", "headingPath": "Player Setup · Player Board · Your Starting Deck · Play Order · Starting Resources · RECOMMENDED TABLE LAYOUT · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.043756, "snippet": "Day 10 - Our archaeology team returned with fantastic tales of dweings in the cliffs adorned with lapidary masterpieces sti intact. Yet their joy at their discovery was mingled with dread of the monster that lurked above. At the beginning of the game, only 5 sites are available for digging. But du", "headingPath": "Discover a New Site · To Discover a New Site", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}, {"page": 23, "score": 0.043697, "snippet": "◊ You can always pay to buy a . ◊ You can't advance your token above your token. ◊ Every row of the research track has an effect. You resolve the effect regardless of whether you take a bonus tile. ◊ When you upgrade your assistant, you also refresh it. ◊ When you use the effect, you can exile a car", "headingPath": "Don't Forget!", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}, {"page": 21, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Your rival discovers a or site, depending on the round. If there are multiple undiscovered sites: ◊ First narrow the choices down to one row. Among sites, give preference to the bottom row. ◊ Then use the decision arrow to choose left or right. Put a rival archaeologist on the chosen space. Move the", "headingPath": "Discover a New Site · Research · Overcome a Guardian · Buy an Item", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "The four slots at the top of your board give you access to useful effects. On your turn, you may put an idol in a slot as a free action : Move the idol from your supply crates to the leftmost unoccupied slot on your player board. Choose one effect from the five depicted options. Some boons are trave", "headingPath": "IDOL SLOTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Player Setup · Player Board · Your Starting Deck · Play Order · Starting Resources · RECOMMENDED TABLE LAYOUT · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Your Turn · Main Actions · Your Hand · TRAVEL VALUE · EFFECT · FREE ACTIONS · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}, {"page": 23, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Frequently Asked Questions · Shorthand Notation · Free Actions", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}, {"page": 13, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Play a Card · To Play a Card · EXILE", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}, {"page": 17, "quote": null, "headingPath": "We have discovered such wonders today! Who knows what we sha find tomorrow? · Setup for Next Round · All players simultaneously do the following: · The card row should be adjusted as follows: · End of Round V", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}, {"page": 13, "quote": null, "headingPath": "PLAYING ARTIFACT CARDS", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Discover a New Site · To Discover a New Site", "sharpsignalDocId": 212}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 212 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 212 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.90723 of 2641 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 13, 2026 13:30

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Your Turn · Main Actions · Your Hand · TRAVEL VALUE · EFFECT · FREE ACTIONS · …	p.8	0.048916 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Play a Card · To Play a Card · EXILE	p.13	0.048652 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	We have discovered such wonders today! Who knows what we sha find tomorrow? · Setup for Next Round · All players simultaneously do the following: · The card row should be adjusted as follows: · End of Round V	p.17	0.046875 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Player Setup · Player Board · Your Starting Deck · Play Order · Starting Resources · RECOMMENDED TABLE LAYOUT · …	p.6	0.046452 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Discover a New Site · To Discover a New Site	p.10	0.043756 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Don't Forget!	p.23	0.043697 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Discover a New Site · Research · Overcome a Guardian · Buy an Item	p.21	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	IDOL SLOTS	p.11	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 39 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Play a Card · To Play a Card · EXILE	p.13	#2	0.048652 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	We have discovered such wonders today! Who knows what we sha find tomorrow? · Setup for Next Round · All players simultaneously do the following: · The card row should be adjusted as follows: · End of Round V	p.17	#3	0.046875 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Frequently Asked Questions · Shorthand Notation · Free Actions	p.23	#9	0.02885 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Your Turn · Main Actions · Your Hand · TRAVEL VALUE · EFFECT · FREE ACTIONS · …	p.8	#1	0.048916 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	PLAYING ARTIFACT CARDS	p.13	#20	0.025278 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Discover a New Site · To Discover a New Site	p.10	#5	0.043756 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Player Setup · Player Board · Your Starting Deck · Play Order · Starting Resources · RECOMMENDED TABLE LAYOUT · …	p.6	#4	0.046452 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	ORNATE HAMMER · OBSIDIAN EARRING · PATHFINDER'S SANDALS PATHFINDER'S STAFF	p.22	#21	0.025158 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Player Setup · Player Board · Your Starting Deck · Play Order · Starting Resources · RECOMMENDED TABLE LAYOUT · …	p.6	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Your Turn · Main Actions · Your Hand · TRAVEL VALUE · EFFECT · FREE ACTIONS · …	p.8	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Frequently Asked Questions · Shorthand Notation · Free Actions	p.23	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Play a Card · To Play a Card · EXILE	p.13	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	We have discovered such wonders today! Who knows what we sha find tomorrow? · Setup for Next Round · All players simultaneously do the following: · The card row should be adjusted as follows: · End of Round V	p.17	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	PLAYING ARTIFACT CARDS	p.13	no quote on the wire
[7]	RULEBOOK Lost Ruins of Arnak — Rulebook (corpus doc 212)	Discover a New Site · To Discover a New Site	p.10	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 93 ms · first delta 2615 ms · total 8597 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 93 ms · ask 8503 ms · gateway work 8597 ms · total 8597 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3605
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 822
tok/sec: 138.5 tok/sec — 822 output tokens in 5.933 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 54s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 137), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.