A game for two to five claimants · BareDrop Arena

Singhasan

The Rule Book of the Lion Throne

Answer by conscience · earn your legends · take the throne

Before you play

The empty throne

The last king of Nauvara rode into the storm and never came back. The realm broke into nine provinces around his empty seat, the Lion Throne.

Four legends of an older age stand as statues on the rim of the arena: Odysseus, Heracles, Orpheus and Hector. They choose no one. They join whoever answers the court the way they would have answered.

You play yourself, a claimant. Each turn the court asks you a question and you answer by your conscience alone; you learn what your answer stood for only after you give it. Spend what the answers pay to raise followers, win the provinces' oaths and pull your rivals' allies away.

When every province has sworn, the claimant they swore to most takes the throne.

2–5claimants

30–70minutes

9provinces

4legends

Contents

Turn the page with the arrows, a click on the page, the arrow keys, or a swipe. The ribbons on the right open each chapter.

Chapter one

The game on one page

Most points when the game ends wins. A tie at the top goes to a duel.

The map of Nauvara from above: nine provinces on one landmass around the Fallen Capital — Nauvara. Each plate reads **followers needed / seats**: the Fallen Capital swears at 8 of its 15.

A turn, in short. The court reads you a Question with two answers. Choose one by its words; it turns over, shows its ideology and pays 3 resources. Then spend: hire followers, March where you hold Sway, trade, play Conspiracies, use your legends' powers.

A province swears to you when you hold more than half its seats, and scores that number for you. The game ends when every province has sworn.

Chapter one

What you play with

9 provinces on one landmass, 93 seats, 14 Rifts
120 Questions, each with two answers
40 Follower cards in the hire row
32 Headlines called by the Rifts
30 Conspiracies, face down
4 resources and 4 legends

Words to know

Claimant: A player.
Follower: A warrior in your colour. Your supply: 30, 26, 22 or 20 with 2, 3, 4 or 5 claimants.
Seat: A place in a province for one follower.
Swear: A province swears to you when you hold more than half its seats; it scores that number.
Break: A sworn province breaks when its holder drops below that number.
Sway: Strictly the most followers in a province.
Loose: A follower not on a Rift and not needed for its holder's majority.
Rift: A glowing seat; a follower placed there calls a Headline.
Sealed: Held by Walls of Troy: it cannot break, and nothing in it moves.
Tribute: 1 of an ideology's resource for every 2 answers you hold in it, each time you answer.

Chapter two

Setup

The storm. With 3 claimants, Ashfall Steppe and the Salt Coast sink and are not used; with 2, Hollowmere and Skyreach go too, and each province starts with 1 neutral wildfolk follower that belongs to no one.
Seat order is drawn at random.
Claim your seat: a colour, a sigil, your follower supply, and your starting resources by seat, as below.
Shuffle the Questions, the Headlines and the Follower cards; deal a hire row of 3. Stack the Conspiracies face down; each shows its cost on its back.

Claimants	Starting resources, by seat
2	0 · 4
3	0 · 3 · 6
4	0 · 3 · 5 · 7
5	1 · 3 · 4 · 6 · 7

Later seats start with more because they act later in every round.

Chapter three

A turn

Answer the court. Draw a Question and choose an answer by its words. It pays 3 resources, plus Tribute.
Act, in any order. Hire followers from the row; March once in each province where you hold Sway; trade; buy Conspiracies and play deeds; use your legends' powers.
Swearing is checked after every change. A province swears or breaks the moment its count crosses its number.
End your turn. Headlines you called resolve, you discard down to 12 resources, and the hire row refills to 3.

Online

At Standard speed you have 45 seconds to answer and 120 to act. The clock is a limit, not a wait: End turn ends it at once, and unused answer time carries into your turn. A time bank covers the one big turn.

Chapter three

The court

You see only the words. The ideology behind an answer, and what it pays, show after you choose.

The court · your steward

The Oath of Fealty

You could make every lord swear fealty to you before you take the throne.

Answer AAsk it freely, and remember who refuses.

Answer BDemand it, with soldiers in the hall.

Before you answer a short window opens in which a rival may play a court Conspiracy. It opens every time, so its opening tells nobody anything.

Once a turn you may pay 3 resources to send the Question away and draw another.

The answer turns over: it stays on your board as one answer in its ideology, pays 3 resources, and Tribute follows.

Chapter three

Resources and Tribute

Everything runs on four resources, one for each ideology, all worth the same.

Resource	Stands for	Ideology
Gold	wealth, trade, bribes	Golden Road
Steel	force, soldiers, fear	Iron Hand
Song	fame, crowds, rumour	Thousand Voices
Oath	loyalty, law, honour	Unbroken Oath

A cost marked any takes any resource. The bank trades any 3 for 1 of your choice. You may hold 12; discard down at the end of your turn.

Tribute

Each time you answer, every ideology pays you 1 of its resource for every 2 answers you hold in it. With 4 Iron Hand answers, every answer brings 2 Steel more.

Chapter four

The legends

At 3 answers in an ideology its legend joins you and the first power wakes; at 5 the legend stands beside you and the second wakes. Lose answers and you lose what they gave.

Golden Road · Gold

Odysseus

the Far-Wanderer · “Everything has a price.”

3Many Harbours. Your treasury limit is 15 instead of 12, and your bank trades are 2 for 1 instead of 3 for 1.

5The Wooden Horse. Once per turn, pay 2 Gold: replace 1 rival follower with one of yours.

Iron Hand · Steel

Heracles

of the Twelve Labours · “Order is a blade held level.”

3The Lion's Skin. Rivals cannot March your followers.

5Clean the Stables. Once per turn, pay 1 Steel: remove up to 3 of one rival's followers from a province where you have followers.

Thousand Voices · Song

Orpheus

the Singer · “The crowd crowns kings.”

3Song of the Road. Once per turn, when you hire followers, pay 1 Song to add 1 more follower to that card.

5Charm the Stones. Once per turn, pay 2 Song: move up to 2 of your followers to any provinces, ignoring borders and Sway. Not off Rifts.

Unbroken Oath · Oath

Hector

Breaker of Horses · “A word kept is a wall.”

3Shield of Troy. Once per round, pay 1 Oath to cancel a Conspiracy, power or March aimed at you.

5Walls of Troy. Once per turn, pay 2 Oath: Seal a province sworn to you. It can never break, nothing there can be removed, moved or converted, and it scores 1 more point.

In the arena

The four statues on the rim always show the claimant whose turn it is: asleep under 3 answers, awake at 3, bronze at 5. Powers never touch a follower on a Rift or in a Sealed province.

Chapter five

Followers, Sway and March

Hire. Pay a card's printed mix: 4, 6 or 8 resources for 1, 2 or 3 followers. Place them together in one province, on free seats; any of them may go on a Rift. Only hiring places a follower on a Rift.

Swear and break. A province swears to you when you hold more than half its seats, and breaks when you drop below that number.

March is how a province is redrawn. In each province where you hold Sway, once a turn, move one loose follower, yours or a rival's, across a shared border onto a free seat. It can tip a province, never break one.

Chapter five

Rifts and Headlines

Every province has 1 or 2 Rifts. Hire a follower onto one and you draw a Headline, resolved at the end of your turn. A follower on a Rift can never be removed, moved or converted.

12 boons	help you
12 banes	hurt you
8 upheavals	hit everyone

Headline · upheaval

The Festival of Storms

Every claimant gains 1 Song. Until your next turn, Conspiracies cost 1 more.

A Headline that lasts stays as a small chip on the right of the screen while it is in force. Hover it or tap it to read it again.

Chapter six

Conspiracies

One pile of 30, face down, the cost on each back (4 or 5). Buy the top card with any resources; hold as many as you like. Deeds are played on your own turn; court cards in the window before a rival answers.

Deed · costs 5

Assassins in the Night

Remove up to 2 of one rival's followers from one province.

No Conspiracy touches a follower on a Rift or in a Sealed province. A rival with the Shield of Troy may cancel one aimed at them.

Trading

On your turn, trade with any rival on any terms you both accept, or with the bank at 3 for 1. Nothing said in chat is binding.

Chapter seven

The end and the duel

The game ends when every province has sworn or every seat is filled. Each claimant then takes one last turn. A safety cap ends it after 18 rounds (16 with five claimants).

Score each province sworn to you at its number, plus 1 for each one you have Sealed.

The duel for the throne

A tie at the top: the arena clears and each duellist's strongest legend steps into a ring of fire. Seven questions are made from the match just played: who holds a province, how many seats it has, who played the last Conspiracy. Both answer at once, 5 seconds each, 3 choices. Most right answers takes the throne.

Still level? Strike the mark: a blade swings across a bar, each taps once, and the tap closest to the mark wins. With three or more tied, all take the same quiz and the best go on.

Chapter eight

Playing on the board

There are no forms. Everything with a target is played on the map.

Pick it up. Open Hire or Schemes on the bar and drag a card, a warrior from your tray, a legend that reads Ready, or a follower straight off the map. Or tap it.
The board answers. Legal targets light and the rest dim; a dim one says why not, in one line.
Preview. Over a target you see what will happen and what it costs, before anything is paid.
Let go, or tap again, to do it. Esc, or a drop off the map, cancels.

Reading the herald

Messages gather on the right. Hover one and it waits for you; pin it to keep it. The Chronicle (the scroll at the top left) keeps everything that was said. In a big moment the screen clears and black bars come in; Skip hurries it along.

The keyboard does it all: Tab to a card, Enter to pick it up, the arrow keys to choose a target, Enter to do it.

At a glance

Quick reference

A turn	Answer → act in any order → swearing checked after every change → end
Answer	3 resources + Tribute; redraw once for 3
Hire	1, 2 or 3 followers for 4, 6 or 8; one province
Conspiracy	4 or 5, any resources
Bank	any 3 for 1 · hold 12
Swear	more than half the seats; scores that number
March	once per Sway province, one loose follower, across a border

Powers · at 3 and at 5 answers

Odysseus	Many Harbours	The Wooden Horse
Heracles	The Lion's Skin	Clean the Stables
Orpheus	Song of the Road	Charm the Stones
Hector	Shield of Troy	Walls of Troy

“Everything has a price. Order is a blade held level. The crowd crowns kings. A word kept is a wall.”

Singhasan · for two to five claimants on BareDrop Arena
Rule book · 1 November 2026