Ruling — Reign of Cthulhu

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Reign of Cthulhubg-192153-en-1e

### Setup

1. Prepare the Player deck by dividing remaining Player cards into four facedown piles of as equal size as possible, shuffling 1 Evil Stirs card into each pile, and stacking them to form the Player deck, placing smaller piles at the bottom.[1]

2. Prepare the Relic pile by randomly selecting 4/5/6 Relic cards (depending on 2/3/4 players) and shuffling them with the remaining Clue cards to form the Player deck, then placing unused Relic cards facedown to the side.[1]

3. Prepare the Summoning deck by shuffling all Summoning cards together.[1]

4. Place Cultists and Shoggoth:

* Flip over the top 2 Summoning cards and place 3 cultists on each location.[1]

* Flip over 2 more cards and place 2 cultists on each location.[1]

* Flip over 2 more cards and place 1 cultist on each location.[1]

* Flip over 1 more card and place 1 Shoggoth on that location.[1]

* Place all drawn Summoning cards faceup on the Summoning discard pile.[1]

5. Deal cards from the Player deck to each player to form initial hands:

* 2-player game: 4 cards.[1]

* 3-player game: 3 cards.[1]

* 4-player game: 2 cards.[1]

6. Each player starts the game by drawing a Relic card from the Relic pile.[2] (Note: Another source states you start the game with an unused Relic [3]).

### Gameplay

Each player's turn is divided into 3 steps:[4][3]

1. **Do 4 actions**:[4][3]

* You may do up to 4 actions each turn, selecting any combination of actions listed on the sane side of your Investigator card.[4][3]

* You may perform the same action several times, with each instance counting as 1 action.[4]

* Actions include:

* **Walk**: Move from your current location to a location connected by a line.[4][3]

* **Take the Bus**: While at a bus station, you can discard a Clue card to move to any location in the town pictured on the card,[4][3] or discard a Clue card matching your current town to move to any location in any town.[4]

* **Move Cultists**: For 1 action, move 1 cultist up to 2 locations; as an action, move up to 2 cultists 1 location each.[2]

* **Move Shoggoth**: For 2 actions, move 1 Shoggoth 1 location.[2]

* **Defeat a Cultist**: Remove 1 cultist figure from your location, returning it to the supply.[5]

* **Defeat a Shoggoth**: Spend 3 actions on the same turn to remove a Shoggoth from your location, returning it to the supply; if successful, draw a Relic card from the Relic pile and add it to your hand.[6][5]

* **Use a Gate**: Move from one gate location to another gate location; if you are on a location with a Shoggoth after using a gate, roll the Sanity die twice (once for the gate, once for the Shoggoth).[5]

* **Give or Take 1 Clue Card**: If sharing a location and both players agree, you can give a Clue card matching your town to another player, or take a Clue card matching your town from another player.[6][5]

* **Give or Take 1 Relic Card**: At any time, even outside your turn, you may do this action for free with a player at your location.[2][6]

* If any movement results in entering a location occupied by a Shoggoth, you must roll the Sanity die.[4][2][7][3]

* If you use a gate and are on a location with a Shoggoth, roll the Sanity die twice.[5]

* Some actions involve discarding cards to the Player discard pile.[4]

2. **Draw 2 Player cards and resolve Evil Stirs cards**:[4][8][3]

* If you draw any Evil Stirs cards, you must resolve them completely before playing a Relic card.[8]

* **Steps for resolving Evil Stirs cards**:

1. Fight the madness: Roll the Sanity die and apply the result.[8][1]

2. Awakening: Reveal the next Old One [4

[1] RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook · p.5

[2] RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook · p.12 · SANE · INSANE

[3] RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook · p.6 · PLAY · 1. ACTIONS · MOVEMENT ACTIONS · WALK · TAKE THE BUS

[4] RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook · p.6

[5] RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook · p.6 · USE A GATE · SPECIAL ACTIONS · DEFEAT A CULTIST · DEFEAT A SHOGGOTH (3 ACTIONS) · GIVE OR TAKE 1 RELIC CARD · FARMSTEAD GIVE OR TAKE 1 CLUE CARD

[6] RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook · p.6

[7] RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook · p.11 · SONG OF KADATH · WARDED BOX · COMMONLY OVERLOOKED RULES

[8] RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook · p.7 · EVIL STIRS CARDS · and resolve Evil Stirs cards 3: Draw Summoning cards Hand limit is 7 cards at all times. HAND LIMIT

🔧 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 81 ms · ask 7040 ms · total 7122 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 7122 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 6, "score": 0.04866, "snippet": "PLAY Each player turn is divided into 3 steps: 1. DO 4 ACTIONS. 2. DRAW 2 PLAYER CARDS. 3. REVEAL SUMMONING CARDS. After a player is done resolving the Summoning cards, the player on their left goes next. Players should freely give each other advice. Let everyone offer opinions and ideas. However, t", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.048387, "snippet": "Each player turn is divided into 3 steps: DO 4 ACTIONS. DRAW 2 PLAYER CARDS. REVEAL SUMMONING CARDS. Players should freely give each other advice. Let everyone offer opinions and ideas. However, the player whose turn it is decides what to do. 2: Draw 2 Player cards and resolve Evil Stirs cards After", "headingPath": "PLAY · 1. ACTIONS · MOVEMENT ACTIONS · WALK · TAKE THE BUS", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.045956, "snippet": "You need only 4 cards (not 5) of the same color to seal the matching gate. You need only 4 cards (not 5) of the same color to seal the matching gate. When you are part of a Give or Take a Clue card action, you (or the other player doing it with you) must take 2 actions. You may do up to 5 actions pe", "headingPath": "SANE · INSANE · CREDITS", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.044283, "snippet": "When insane, you may use the Song of Kaddath after your last action to become sane. In this case, you will get one more action to take this turn. When a player draws this card during the Draw Cards step, they may not immediately gain an action from their increase in sanity since it is no longer the ", "headingPath": "SONG OF KADATH · WARDED BOX · COMMONLY OVERLOOKED RULES", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.043905, "snippet": "Due to their unspeakable horror, defeating a Shoggoth takes 3 actions and these 3 actions must all be spent on the same turn. After defeating a Shoggoth with this action, draw a Relic card from the Relic pile and add it to your hand. Note: Other effects may allow you to remove Shoggoths from the boa", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "For 1 action, you may move 1 cultist up to 2 locations. For 2 actions, you may move 1 Shoggoth 1 location. As an action, move up to 2 cultists 1 location each. When Taking the Bus, discard any Clue card to go to any location on the board. As an action, you may move from one bus station to any other ", "headingPath": "SANE · INSANE", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "ARKS The Detective is at the Hospital. He wishes to go to the Graveyard and help the Occultist seal the Kingsport gate (red). He has just sealed the Innsmouth gate (blue) and cannot use it to travel directly to the Graveyard. The Detective walks 1 to the Factory, a bus location. Since he enters a lo", "headingPath": "GAME END · PLAYER TURN - ACTIONS STEP · DRAW CARDS STEP · SUMMONING STEP UNIVERSITY", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "SHUDDE M’ELL CTHULHU The world is plunged into an age of madness, chaos, and destruction. You have lost. CTHULHU The world is plunged into an age of madness, chaos, and destruction. You have lost. 6 3 stack shuffle 1. Fight the madness - Roll the Sanity die. 2. Awakening - Reveal the next Old One. 3", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 12, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SANE · INSANE", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "PLAY · 1. ACTIONS · MOVEMENT ACTIONS · WALK · TAKE THE BUS", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "USE A GATE · SPECIAL ACTIONS · DEFEAT A CULTIST · DEFEAT A SHOGGOTH (3 ACTIONS) · GIVE OR TAKE 1 RELIC CARD · FARMSTEAD GIVE OR TAKE 1 CLUE CARD", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 11, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SONG OF KADATH · WARDED BOX · COMMONLY OVERLOOKED RULES", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "EVIL STIRS CARDS · and resolve Evil Stirs cards 3: Draw Summoning cards Hand limit is 7 cards at all times. HAND LIMIT", "sharpsignalDocId": 554}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 554 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 554 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 0.87303 of 2922 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 15, 2026 10:24

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 Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)		p.6	0.04866 (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 Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	PLAY · 1. ACTIONS · MOVEMENT ACTIONS · WALK · TAKE THE BUS	p.6	0.048387 (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 Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	SANE · INSANE · CREDITS	p.12	0.045956 (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 Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	SONG OF KADATH · WARDED BOX · COMMONLY OVERLOOKED RULES	p.11	0.044283 (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 Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)		p.6	0.043905 (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 Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	SANE · INSANE	p.12	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
#7	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	GAME END · PLAYER TURN - ACTIONS STEP · DRAW CARDS STEP · SUMMONING STEP UNIVERSITY	p.10	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 Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)		p.5	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 25 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 Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)		p.6	#1	0.04866 (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 Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	SANE · INSANE	p.12	#6	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
#3	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)		p.6	#5	0.043905 (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 Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	EVIL STIRS CARDS · and resolve Evil Stirs cards 3: Draw Summoning cards Hand limit is 7 cards at all times. HAND LIMIT	p.7	#10	0.029083 (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
#5	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	USE A GATE · SPECIAL ACTIONS · DEFEAT A CULTIST · DEFEAT A SHOGGOTH (3 ACTIONS) · GIVE OR TAKE 1 RELIC CARD · FARMSTEAD GIVE OR TAKE 1 CLUE CARD	p.6	#20	0.014286 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	SONG OF KADATH · WARDED BOX · COMMONLY OVERLOOKED RULES	p.11	#4	0.044283 (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 Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)		p.5	#12	0.028439 (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 Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	PLAY · 1. ACTIONS · MOVEMENT ACTIONS · WALK · TAKE THE BUS	p.6	#2	0.048387 (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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)		p.5	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	SANE · INSANE	p.12	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	PLAY · 1. ACTIONS · MOVEMENT ACTIONS · WALK · TAKE THE BUS	p.6	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)		p.6	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	USE A GATE · SPECIAL ACTIONS · DEFEAT A CULTIST · DEFEAT A SHOGGOTH (3 ACTIONS) · GIVE OR TAKE 1 RELIC CARD · FARMSTEAD GIVE OR TAKE 1 CLUE CARD	p.6	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)		p.6	no quote on the wire
[7]	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	SONG OF KADATH · WARDED BOX · COMMONLY OVERLOOKED RULES	p.11	no quote on the wire
[8]	RULEBOOK Reign of Cthulhu — Rulebook (corpus doc 554)	EVIL STIRS CARDS · and resolve Evil Stirs cards 3: Draw Summoning cards Hand limit is 7 cards at all times. HAND LIMIT	p.7	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 81 ms · first delta 2071 ms · total 7122 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 81 ms · ask 7040 ms · gateway work 7122 ms · total 7122 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3769
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 1024
tok/sec: 204.6 tok/sec — 1024 output tokens in 5.004 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 16s 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 486), 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.