All basic third edition Magic Realm rules will be used with the following additions:

• Advanced Rules from Second edition:
1. Caching
2. Pack Horses
3. Dropping (and losing) Belongings
4. Automatic Enchanting
   and parts of
5. Advanced Combat and Magic:
2. Ambushes Modified as follows: For each hired native, horse, suit of armor, or shield (whether active or not) the character has with him in the clearing, add 1 to his hide roll during the ambush.
3. Power of the Pit
4. Flying Activities
5. Serious Wounds
6. Dragon Heads

• Optional Rules from Second edition:
  1. Optional Abilities
     All character optional abilities are truly optional (i.e., you may choose whether or not to use them with your character) except:
  • The Berserker, when berserk, in addition to gaining Tremendous vulnerability, may play one more effort asterisk than he would normally be allowed during each round of combat, with the concomitant fatigue.
  • The Elf must choose "Light Elf" or "Great Elf"
  • The Black Knight is "Friendly" not "Allied" with the Company.
  • The White Knight is "Friendly" not "Allied" with the Order.
  • The Woods Girl's tracking skills extend to all woods clearings except those on the RUINS, CHASM and VALLEY tiles.
  • The Dwarf's Short Legs advantage is changed. Section 1.1 now reads: The Dwarf must spend one additional, consecutive movement phase to enter any non-cave clearing. Drop section 1.2 (double rest) entirely.
  2. Seasons and Weather Note: The season will be unpredictable. Instead of choosing the starting season before setting up the game, we will wait until the map is complete, and all characters have specified their starting spells, location, and equipment sources. Randomly determining the starting season is the last activity before specifying victory requirements and revealing the Dwellings on the map. (The first week of the game will be clear weather.)
  4. Commerce
     (This includes Grudges and Gratitude.) Note: The commerce table is for SELLING items to natives only. If you want to buy from a native leader, you use the normal meeting table. Prices for both selling and buying are modified as listed in Optional rule 4.2.
  5. Optional Combat Rules
  6. Automatic Enchanting
  7. Enhanced Artifacts and Spell Books
  8. Enhanced Magic
     Please note: The combination of rules 7 and 8 makes some otherwise less useful spells quite desirable. Please review all the options when selecting spells. Neither the chit nor the spell is ever "dedicated".

• Expanding the Realm rules from Second edition:
  2. Changing the Game Time
     This game will last for six weeks. We will play four weeks in a randomly selected season and two weeks in the following season.
  6. Combining Realms
     This will be a double board game. Only one of each character will be in play. Note: All treasure cards are identified by what set they belong to in the CyberBoard we are using. However, maps do not need to be. So, the map to the Lost City, Lost Castle, and Ruins will work with either set. (For purposes of these maps, the Chasm will be considered a ruins tile.) The lost keys, however, only unlock their matching chest, vault and crypt.

• Third Edition Rules clarifications & modifications:
  

  3.2 Board Building

  The players construct the map by placing the hex tiles side by side, green side up. Each player gets a group of tiles to place, and the players take turns placing the tiles, one by one.

3.3 Selecting Characters
If a player has no hex tiles left when it is his turn to play, then instead of playing a tile he chooses the character he will play in the game. He can choose any character who has not yet been taken by another player. At the same time he will announce which native group he will select the character's starting equipment from.
3.3.7 Starting Information and Scoring (change)
Once the season has been determined and before the Dwellings are revealed, the players will secretly notify the gamemaster of their Victory Requirements (exact total depends on season and game length), their starting location (if they have a choice), recorded spells, and any Magic chits to begin the game enchanted.
7.13.5 Prowling Visitors, Missions and Campaign Chits (change)
If the individual ends his turn in the same tile with one of these native leaders or sites, the visitor or campaign chit appears in the clearing with the native leader or site. Once a visitor or campaign chit appears in a clearing, it remains there for the rest of the game, unless taken by a character. It never returns to the Appearance Chart and does not move around the tile.
9.1.2 Fresh Starts (change)
He must start at the Inn that is farthest from the clearing where he died. Distance is determined via the same method as for a mission (rule 7.2.4e1).
9.3.2e Starting Equipment Credit (change)
To adjust for the Gold value that he had available at the start of the game, he must reduce his Gold score by subtracting 10 points, plus the Gold price of all of the weapons and armor he had at the start of the game if he no longer has the weapons and armor among his belongings.

• House Rules:
  
  • Unlimited Communication
    Characters may communicate privately with other characters, no matter where they are on the board. The GM appreciates being copied on these just for fun, but it is not required.
  • Expanded Meeting Table Opportunities
    If, when rolling on the Meeting Table or Commerce Table, you roll an OPPORTUNITY result, you may ignore the OPPORTUNITY and instead take the "2" result in the same column.
  • Natives are people, too: No character or hired native may target an unhired native, unless that native:
    • is unfriendly to him, or
    • is an enemy of his, or
    • is battling him that evening, or
    • is a foe of the character's campaign, or
    • has been assigned to another character that evening.
  • Expansion tiles: We will be using a selection of the expansion tiles available from Robin Warren's website. There will be duplicates of the Borderland and Mountain tiles. Other treasure tiles (those with six clearings) are replaced as follows:
    
    M tiles (possible home to a lost castle):
    - Crag (replaced by Volcano)
    - Ledges (replaced by Ambush)
    - Cliff (replaced by Pinnacle)
    - Deep Woods (replaced by Deep Lake)
    
    C tiles (possible home to a lost city):
    - Ruins (replace by Chasm)
    - Caverns (replaced by Hidden Mines)
    - High Pass (replaced by Descent)
    - Caves (replaced by Tristar)
    
    With these subsitutions, the number of cave and mountain clearings have changed. We lost one cave clearing on the Ruins/Chasm swap and three on the Caves/Tristar replacement. We lost two mountain clearings on the Cliff for Pinnacle trade but gained one on the Descent. I have modified the enchanted side of the Volcano to produce all three colors of magic found on the board, just like the Crag it replaced. Thus the availablity of color magic from enchanted tiles is unchanged.
    
    Some of these new tiles require further explanation.
    • AMBUSH - This tile is particularly difficult to place in the later stages of board construction due to the existence of three disconnected paths. Therefore, it will not be dealt to any player. As soon as a viable position is available, the player who just played a tile will then place AMBUSH free of charge.
    • CHASM - Walking the woods does not allow one to traverse the Chasm without crossing the bridge between clearings 5 and 6.
    • VOLCANO - There are four types of clearings on either side of this tile: normal mountain, red lava mountain, orange lava mountain, and white lava mountain. All of these clearings are treated as normal mountain clearings for movement, spells or other game purposes. At Midnight of each turn, characters take damage depending on the clearing they are in. A character on a roadway between clearings suffers the lesser penalty.
      
      

      Clearing	Effect
      NORMAL	None
      RED LAVA	Fatigue 1 asterisk
      ORANGE LAVA	Wound 1 chit
      WHITE LAVA	Roll for Serious Wounds

Updated: April 4, 2005

© 2005, Daniel W. Farrow IV, all rights reserved