Ruling — Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition)

← Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition)

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition)bg-104162-en-1e

To play Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition, follow these steps:

**Setup**

1. Choose a Quest from the Quest Guide.[1]

2. Assemble the map and place doors as indicated in the chosen quest's "Encounter 1" diagram.[1]

3. Decide who will take the role of the overlord; all other players take the roles of heroes.[1]

4. Sort all damage, fatigue, hero, and condition tokens into piles and place them within reach of all players.[1]

5. Shuffle all Search cards together and place the deck facedown within reach of hero players.[1]

6. Place Condition cards in separate piles by type within reach of all players.[1]

7. Hero players choose one Activation card and the hero tokens of the corresponding color.[2]

8. All hero players agree on which player controls which hero, with each player choosing one Hero sheet and corresponding hero figure (in a two-player game, the lone hero player controls two heroes).[2]

9. Each hero player chooses one Class deck that matches their chosen hero's archetype icon.[2]

10. Every hero begins with the basic skill and starting equipment from their Class deck.[2]

11. Place hero figures on the map in the area indicated by the quest rules (typically an entrance tile).[2]

12. The overlord player performs Overlord Setup.[2]

**Game Rounds and Turns**

1. The game is played over a number of rounds.[3]

2. In each round, hero players decide as a group the order in which they wish to act; if they cannot agree, they proceed clockwise starting with the player to the left of the overlord.[3]

3. Each player completes their entire turn before the next player begins.[3]

4. During a hero turn, the active player performs these steps in order:

* Start of Turn: End any effects lasting "until the start of your next turn," use any abilities that trigger "at the start of your turn," and refresh exhausted cards.[4]

* Equip Items: Equip different items if desired.[4]

* Perform Actions: The hero receives two ACTIONS, which can be performed in any order and may be the same action twice.[4] Possible actions include:

* Move: Move up to a number of spaces equal to the hero's Speed.[4]

* Attack: Attack a monster.[4]

* Use a Skill: Use a skill from a Class card denoted with a /orn.01.[4]

* Rest: Recover all fatigue at the end of the turn.[4]

* Search: Reveal a search token if adjacent to or in a space containing one.[4]

* Stand Up: A knocked out hero may use this to recover damage and prepare for activation.[4]

* Revive a Hero: Restore health to a knocked out hero in an adjacent space.[4]

* Open or Close a Door: Open or close one adjacent door.[4]

* Special: Perform unique actions provided by cards or quests.[4]

5. After all heroes have completed their turns, the overlord's turn begins.[3]

6. During the overlord turn, the player draws one card from the Overlord deck and may play any cards that state they are played "at the start of your turn".[5]

7. The overlord activates monsters, performing up to two actions with each monster activated (though each monster may only perform one attack action per activation).[5]

8. After the overlord finishes their turn, the round ends and a new round begins.[3]

[1] RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook · p.4 · General Setup · Hero Archetypes

[2] RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook · p.5 · Hero Setup

[3] RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook · p.7 · Playing the Game

[4] RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook · p.7 · Hero Turn Summary

[5] RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook · p.10 · Open or Close a Door · Special · Overlord Turn in Detail

🔧 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 84 ms · ask 6800 ms · total 6886 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 6886 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 5, "score": 0.04741, "snippet": "After completing General Setup, the hero players continue setup as follows. The overlord player then performs Overlord Setup (see 'Overlord Setup'). Take Activation Cards and Hero Tokens: Each hero player chooses one Activation card and takes the hero tokens of the corresponding color. Choose Heroes", "headingPath": "Hero Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.0463, "snippet": "To start a new campaign, the players must assign roles for the campaign. One player takes the role of the overlord. The other players take the roles of the heroes. This process is identical to the rules described in 'Setup' on page 4, with exceptions as noted here. It's important to note that the ch", "headingPath": "Starting a New Campaign · THE SHOP ITEM DECK · MONSTERS & LIEUTENANTS · CAMPAIGN MAP · Quests in a Campaign", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.045724, "snippet": "The overlord player performs the following steps after hero players perform Hero Setup (see 'Hero Setup'). Choose Monsters: The Quest Guide lists the monster group options available to the overlord for the chosen quest. He takes the Act I Monster cards and figures for the chosen monster groups and p", "headingPath": "Overlord Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.043461, "snippet": "Before playing, set up the game as follows: Choose Quest: Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition includes 16 unique quests (along with 4 campaign-specific quests) with specific setup instructions and objectives for both the heroes and the overlord. When choosing which quest to play, refer to t", "headingPath": "General Setup · Hero Archetypes", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "During each hero turn, the active hero player performs the following steps in order. Start of Turn: During this step, any effects affecting the active hero that last 'until the start of your next turn' end. Also, the hero player may use any abilities that trigger 'at the start of your turn.' Then th", "headingPath": "Hero Turn Summary", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "When a hero player performs an attack action, he may use one of his equipped weapons to attack a space containing a monster. The hero's equipped weapon determines which spaces the hero may target for the attack. A weapon with the Melee icon may only target a space adjacent (see 'Adjacent Spaces' on ", "headingPath": "Attack", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "The attacking player creates his ATTACK POOL by gathering all the dice listed on his equipped weapon or Monster card, and then rolls them for his attack roll. If an ability allows a player to add dice to this pool, he must do so before the roll. If an X is rolled on the blue attack die, the attack i", "headingPath": "2. ROLL DICE", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.029911, "snippet": "Players now have a basic understanding of how to play Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition and may now begin playing the game. The following section contains advanced rules such as Epic Play and campaign rules to enhance the game. This optional rule is for players who wish to access high lev", "headingPath": "Advanced Rules · Epic Play · Campaign Rules", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "General Setup · Hero Archetypes", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Hero Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Playing the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Hero Turn Summary", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Open or Close a Door · Special · Overlord Turn in Detail", "sharpsignalDocId": 369}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 369 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 369 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 0.90577 of 2600 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 14, 2026 06:39

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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Hero Setup	p.5	0.04741 (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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Starting a New Campaign · THE SHOP ITEM DECK · MONSTERS & LIEUTENANTS · CAMPAIGN MAP · Quests in a Campaign	p.19	0.0463 (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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Overlord Setup	p.5	0.045724 (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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	General Setup · Hero Archetypes	p.4	0.043461 (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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Hero Turn Summary	p.7	0.031746 (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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Attack	p.9	0.03125 (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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	2. ROLL DICE	p.12	0.030769 (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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Advanced Rules · Epic Play · Campaign Rules	p.19	0.029911 (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 61 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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Playing the Game	p.7	#10	0.028986 (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
#2	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	General Setup · Hero Archetypes	p.4	#4	0.043461 (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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Hero Setup	p.5	#1	0.04741 (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
#4	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	2. ROLL DICE	p.12	#7	0.030769 (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 + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Ending a Session	p.19	#30	0.021905 (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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Hero Turn Summary	p.7	#5	0.031746 (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 + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Open or Close a Door · Special · Overlord Turn in Detail	p.10	#11	0.027973 (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
#8	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Advanced Rules · Epic Play · Campaign Rules	p.19	#8	0.029911 (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 Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	General Setup · Hero Archetypes	p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Hero Setup	p.5	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Playing the Game	p.7	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Hero Turn Summary	p.7	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 369)	Open or Close a Door · Special · Overlord Turn in Detail	p.10	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 84 ms · first delta 3006 ms · total 6886 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 84 ms · ask 6800 ms · gateway work 6886 ms · total 6886 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3161
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 782
tok/sec: 204.8 tok/sec — 782 output tokens in 3.819 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 49s 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 298), 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.