Etherion is a two player strategic board game with elements of deck building intended to be played in best of threes. Players play as mages trying to control the magical ley lines of a locale represented by the grid of the board. Players fight to control the ley lines by placing tokens of power at their intersections, creating patterns with the tokens to cast cantrips from their spell book or surrounding their opponent's tokens to convert them to their own.
Players start the game by choosing a colour of magic. Each colour corresponds to a deck of twenty unique cards of two type's; cantrips (thirteen in the deck) and spells (seven in the deck). Each colours cards highlight a unique play style. Once players have chosen a colour they shuffle their deck and draw five cards, they keep two and discard then repeat this. The third time they draw they keep two and discard one from the six they now have and again repeat this. Ending with a hand of five cards. The player places keeps these cards without showing his or her opponent.
Once they have their cards players take turns placing tokens on the grid at the intersections of the lines with the goal of enclosing the most possible space and hence gathering its magical power. Players can attack an opponent's tokens by blocking off (at any distance) all of the lines leading to them with a token of their own (this works for single tokens and groups) when all of the ley lines are blocked the tokens are "dead" and are removed from the board at the end of the game prior to scoring. They can also use the cantrip cards they have in their hand. Cantrips show token patterns on them, when this pattern is created the card can be revealed and the effect written on it occurs. The effect only occurs if the card is revealed as the last piece in that pattern occurs. The card remains revealed and in play after this. If the pattern is created again then the effect occurs again.
There are two possible ends to the game, the standard (and fairly rare) ending of the game where players place all their pieces or a spell ending. In the event of a standard ending players remove all tokens which are dead and then count the total space they have enclosed earning one point for each intersection enclosed. Spell endings are however entirely different.
To start a spell ending players must have a spell card in their hand. Spell cards state alternative unique victory conditions and must be revealed before the first piece is placed. In the event both players reveal a spell card a duel occurs. Duels are carried out by taking turns bidding a number of points they will beat their opponent by, players must always bid higher than their opponent to keep the bid going, the player who bids the highest wins the right to cast their spell. The winner now has to A) win the game and B) beat their opponent by the number of points they said they would. If they do so then they have the win, the loser of the bid however must only stop their opponent winning by the number of points he said he would. If they do this they have the win.
The game is intended to be played as a best of three (or more) to allow both sides a chance to play spells.
Etherion aims to be a strategic player versus player game allowing two players to lock in a dynamic battle of wits. Each player has to make constant strategic decisions similar to those of chess however underlying this they are trying to achieve their win condition and create the patterns they have hidden in their cards. As players become familiar with the game they will begin to consider what cantrips a player may be holding and what effects they could have, attempting to dodge potentially dangerous patterns and positions while advancing their own positions and developing their own patterns in a dance across the board. Cantrips may allow players to pick pieces back up, remove opposing pieces from board or add additional pieces of their own and so can have wild effects on the game state quickly changing the board.
Overall Etherion aims for a deeply varied and complex battle of wits between players of equal understanding.
Games of Etherion should last approximately fifteen minutes with a set of three (the intended number for a match) lasting forty five minutes.
