Chainspell

June 13, 2014

Contents
1 Game Story 2
2 Game Description 2
3 Player Rulebook 1: Basic Rules 2
3.1 Game elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3.2 Victory Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.3 Description of game mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.4 Card Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.5 Schools of Magic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.6 Game cards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.7 Casting spells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4 Player Rulebook 2: Advanced Rules 7
4.1 Energy management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.2 Linking Spells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.3 The turn phases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.4 Special game mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.4.1 Interrupt spell casting: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.4.2 Crosslinking spells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.4.3 Banishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.4.4 Transfering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.4.5 Shielding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.4.6 Delayed Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.4.7 Reecting Damage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.4.8 Combined Schools of Magic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1
1 Game Story
2 Game Description
Chainspell is a single and multiplayer, free, Print&Play (P&P from now
on) card game where the players ght with spells to become the last
one standing.
Chainspell is not a tradeable or collectible card game since all
cards in the collection are available, but each player must construct
his own deck of cards, and each deck may be different to any other
given deck.
Although this game was designed to be printed in paper, there is
also available a digital version of all cards that you can use to play
under card games engine such as LackeyCCG, gCCG or similar soft-
ware.
Whatever is the method you use, enjoy the game!
3 Player Rulebook 1: Basic Rules
3.1 Game elements
Both, single player and multi player games, each player need the next
elements:
A deck of cards: each player deck is the grimoire of spells known
to that player. Each deck must have between 40 and 60 cards.
If you are going to play single player, you must prepare a deck
for the virtual enemy. Note that having more or less cards is
not an advantadge by itself, but losing all cards in your deck will
lead to being defeated. But a deck with lots of cards can be also
counterproductive if you dont get the card you need in a given
moment. Your deck may contain cards from different Schools
of Magic, but you cant have more than 4 cards with the same
name.
A bunch of counters: each player needs to own counters that
will be used to contabilize several things during the game. Usu-
ally, 20 counters will be a good amount. Anything can work as
a counter, from crystal beads to coins or even small pieces of
paper. There are also some mobile phone applications that em-
ulate counters.
A 10-sides dice: one for all players will be ok. It is used when
casting some spells and activating certain game mechanichs.
Once you got all necessary elements, you can start a match.
2
3.2 Victory Conditions
Chainspell allows you to win a match if any of the next conditions are
met:
If the enemy health points become zero or less
If the enemy deck runs out of cards
But stay alert, because there are some details you must have into
account before you win a match: if the player health becomes zero
or less, you will automatically win but if the number of cards in the
enemy deck become zero, you wont win until the end of the turn, so
take into account!
In addition to those common conditions, there are some cards that
can give you victory if some specic conditions are met.
3.3 Description of game mechanics
Chainspell is different to other card games in what strategy is the
most important part of the game. There are not cards that let you
win easily, and there are no useless cards, because any card can lead
you to victory if used in the right moment. All players start the game
with 30 health points.
Chainspell is played by turns. During each turn, the players can
play as many cards as they want until they run of energy. You can
play card during your turn and during any enemy turn. Before starting
the match, its necessary to decide who is going to play rst. Once
decided, you can choose to take turns in a clockwise or anticlockwise
fashion. The player who takes the rst turn, doesnt draw a card from
the deck this turn during the Preparation Phase.
Most cards have a spell link property. A spell link is a way to join
several cards to be played all together and obtain certain benets.
Cards with spell chain property will modify the spell linked up to some
degree. You can chain link as many spells as you want as soon as you
have energy to keep casting spells.
During your turn, you will recover all your energy, draw a new
card, cast spells, maintain your active enchantments and discard any
excess card. You can only have 6 cards in your hand at the end of
your turn, so you must discard down to 6 if you have more than that.
3.4 Card Types
Chainspell has three different card types:
Unstable Spell: these are the fastest spells available and their
effects are applied immediately upon being casted, and due to
3
this speed, they have some degree of chaotic or unpredictable
result. You can cast Unstable Spells in your turn or your enemy
turn.
Sorcery Spells: they are the second fastest spells available and
even when their effect is immediate, it comes after Unstable
Spells effect. You can cast Sorcery Spells in your turn or other
players turns.
Ritual Spells: the slowest spells but usually the most powerfull
ones in terms of raw power. You can cast them only during your
turn and their effect comes after all other kind of spells are ap-
plied.
Enchantment Spells: they have the same speed as Ritual Spells.
But Enchantment Spells are different to any other spell in what
they are permanent once they are successfully cast. The effect
of Enchantments is always working if the enchantment is active.
You can cast Enchantments only during your turn.
Now that we know the types of spells, lets play an example spell cast:
there are 3 players playing. Its Player 1 turn. He decides
to cast a powerful ritual spell. But Player 2 doesnt want
that ritual spell to enter game, so he casts a sorcery spell
that interrupts the ritual spellcasting. Because the sorcery
spell is faster, it can interrupt the ritual, which is slower. But
now, Player 3 thinks that the ritual spell can benet him, so
he casts an unstable spell to interrupt Player 2s sorcery
spell. So nally, the ritual spell enters game.
Now, there is something important about spell priority and casting
speed: you can faster spells can be cast as a reaction to slower spells,
but you cannot react to a specic spell with a spell that has the same
speed, for example, you cant interrupt a sorcery spell with another
sorcery spell.
The only exception is with unstable spells, where you can interrupt
(or react) to a unstable spell with another unstable spell.
3.5 Schools of Magic
In Chainspell there are six different schools of magic:
Air: these spells focus for the most part on dealing damage, but
also they can control some aspects of the battleeld. Mages
from this school of magic usually take advantadge of the elec-
tricity imbued into their enemies bodies, making their spells to
become even more dangerous for their enemies.
4
Earth: the school of life and death, they learnt to combine those
two elements to either heal and protect themselves but also to
pour plage, illness or deal merciless attacks to their enemies.
Fire: the school of raw damage, the wrath of ames and the
unconditional destruction. Most of those re mages worry not
about their energy consumption because they usually center in
dealing the most possible damage in the less possible time. But
while they are burning they enemies alive, they are also harming
their own mind while casting most of those powerful spells.
Holy: mages from this school think that becoming immortal is
the rst step to cleanse the world from all other kind of destruc-
tive and unholy magic, and with reason they call themselves
immortals, since their spells are centered mostly on protect-
ing, recovering, avoiding damage... But once they get into bat-
tle, their wrath and vengeful attacks can become really harmful.
Mind: this magic is the strangest and hardest to master, but
it is said that mages reaching a high knowledge in this school
of magic can turn others minds into a bag of nightmares, can
convert you into nothing, and can turn yourself in your worst
enemy. But stay alert, because messing with the mind doesnt
comes without a price...
Water: a water mage can change the tide of battle... and this is
not just a saying, because they learnt to control the water, the
seas, and the weather to call upon their enemies terrible storms
and ice rains. They are also known for their tricks and traps, so
be cautious when ghtning against a water mage.
3.6 Game cards
Cards look like the next one:
5
1. Card Name: the name of the card.
2. Cost: energy cost to cast the card.
3. Spell type and school of magic.
4. Card Artist: the name of the person who drew the card art.
5. Effect: spell effect and description.
6. Link: Possible effect of the link on the next card played.
Every card in Chainspell has all those elements, except the Link, that
some cards lack.
3.7 Casting spells
Casting spells is easy: you need to put the card in the table facing up
so everyone can see whats going on.
6
You can use any card, except any spell effect dont allow it to you,
and also having into account the amount of energy you have. Once
you run out of energy, you cannot cast more spells that cost 1 or
more energy (you can cast spells with 0 energy cost). If you run out
of energy, you need to wait to your next turn to recover your energy.
Energy is the basic element that you need to pay in order to play
cards. Your energy is fully recovered at the start of your turn, so use
it wisely because running out of energy from your turn means that
you cannot cast spells during others turns. Of course, it is possible to
cast 0-energy cost spells and even increase your energy amount with
some specic spells that increase your energy.
Once you pay the energy requirement, the card will be played, but
the spell is not still effective. The spell is effective if nobody interrupts
its spellcasting, so if you pay its cost and nobody reacts to it, then
the spell is successfully cast.
Also, while casting spells you must have into account the spell
effect speed as we described before.
4 Player Rulebook 2: Advanced Rules
4.1 Energy management
Energy management is very important in Chainspell. Contrary to
other CCGs or TCGs, here you dont have the chance to have your
own energy generators or increase how much energy you can obtain
each turn. All players starts the game with 15 energy that can be
used to cast spells in your turn or during others turns. Use 15 coun-
ters to know how many energy you still have left.
Energy is fully recovered at the very start of your turn. Recovering
the energy is the rst thing that happens in your turn, and there is
nothing that can happen faster. There is no spell or effect that can
react to your energy gain.
Although we said before that you cannot have more than 15 en-
ergy points, that is not really true. There are some spells that can
increase this amount, but this effect will last short, usually one turn,
and in some cases, until your next turn comes, so it is not a perma-
nent energy gain.
And also, we just said that you get all your 15 energy, but again,
this is not really true: during your maintenance fase, you will have
to maintain all your active Links and Crosslinks by paying 2 energy
per each of them. If you cant or dont pay, then the link that wasnt
maintained is sent to your discard pile.
Also, there are some spells that can reduce the maximum amount
of energy.
7
Energy can be used to either cast spells or to maintain Enchant-
ment Spells.
To know how much energy you must pay, you have two options:
Fixed amount of energy: this is described with a number. It rep-
resents the exact amount of energy you must pay.
Random amount of energy: this is described with a ? mark.
This means that you must throw a dice. Then, pay that amount
of energy and look at the card description to know what will hap-
pen. For example, you have a card that says Cost = ?; 1-5: Deal
4 damage; 6-10: deal 7 damage This means that if you got a
3 with your dice, you must pay 3 energy to cast that card, then
the card will deal 4 damage if it is successfully cast. You can try
casting Random Cost cards even if you dont have 10 energy. If
you have only 4 energy and your dice rolls a 9, then your card
is discarded because you tried to cast it but you couldnt pay its
cost, so its a good idea to have a good amount of energy be-
fore trying to cast Random Cost cards. You must throw the dice
before showing the card.
Custom amount of energy: this is described with a X on its cost.
This means that this card can accept a variable amount of en-
ergy to be paid, and according to this, the card effect will vary.
For example, a card like Cost = X; Deal X Damage means that
it will deal the same damage as the amount of energy you spent
on the card. In this case, you must have the necessary energy
to pay the card. You cant spent an amount of energy you dont
have, and once you pay the energy.
4.2 Linking Spells
This is probably the most powerful feature available to you in Chain-
spell.
Linking Spells means that one spell that you cast will modify a little
bit the behaviour of the next spell you cast. Links from your spells
only works for you. You cannot use Links from other players.
By default, linking doesnt cost any energy, but some links may
have some requirements or only work under specic circumstances.
To link spells, you must place the sucesive spells over the previous
one, stacking the cards one over the previous one.
Unused links will remain in the game until you cast a spell, which
will be casted over the link. Note that, once a spell takes place, it
cannot be interrupted or modied in any way, but it also is not sent to
your discard card immediately. This means that when you cast a spell,
that spell effect took place but the spell is still alive by means of its
8
link. The card is in the game as a Spell Link. You cannot interrupt or
interact with it as a normal spell, but any spell or effect that interact
with links, can do it.
So lets say, you cast 4 spells, using their links to enhance them.
All those spells have taken place and the links from the 1st, 2nd and
3rd spell have been used up. There is only the link from the 4th spell
that can be used with a possible 5th spell or stop casting and this 4th
link will wait as a Spell Link until you cast your next spell or the link
gets dispelled.
Lets illustrate spell linking with an example:
John and Peter are playing.
Its Johns turn. He casts a Fireblast, paying 2 energy
(removes 2 counters from his energy stack). Peter do not
interrupt it, so 2 points of damage are immediately dealt
to Peter. Now John decides to use that Fireblast Link on
another Fireblast, so he pays 2 energy again and casts an-
other Fireblast, which, being cast over the previous link,
sees its damage increased by 1. Peter decides not to inter-
rupt it, so he receives 3 damage. John creates a new link
with this last Fireblast. The last Link has been used up by
this last Fireblast. Now, John thinks that Peter doesnt have
any interrupting spell on his hand, so he decides to cast
a big hitting spell: Flameball, a Ritual Spell which deals 7
damage at the cost of 9 energy, so casting Flameball deal
8 damage instead of 7 thanks to the last Fireblast link. He
pays 9 energy, reducing his total energy to 2 (2 + 2 + 9 =
13 out of 15). But now Peter has a surprise for John: Mir-
ror Spell, a Sorcery Spell with Random Cost that will reect
back an amount of energy equal to the dice roll. He throws
a dice and obtains a 6, so he pays 6 energy and plays Mir-
ror Spell, reecting 6 points of damage back to John. The
result is that John receives 6 damage and Peter receives
2. Because Mirror Spell is a Sorcery Spell, it could react
to Flameball Ritual, but not to the previous Fireblast casts
because they are also Sorcery Spells. Sadly, Mirror Spell
doesnt create any link.
Now John almost run out of energy, so he decides stop
casting and save these 2 energy points for a counter spell in
his hand, just in case something goes wrong during Peters
turn.
It is important to know that you cant choose not to use a Link. A link
always applies, and even if you dont want to use it, it is used the
next spell you cast, so for example, if a Link increases re damage by
1 and you cast a spell that deals water damage, that link will be used,
9
but will deal nothing because you didnt dealt Fire damage with the
new spell.
4.3 The turn phases
Chainspell has three phases during each turn:
1. Preparation Phase: this is the rst event to happen. Here, you
rst get all your 15 energy back. Then, if you have any Enchant-
ment maintenance, you must pay it or it will banish. If you must
pay energy due to some kind of permanent effect, you must pay
it here too. For example, there is an enchantment called Energy
Vortex that makes every player to choose to either pay 2 energy
or receive 1 damage during his preparation phase. This effect
is triggered here, but after you recover all your energy. Also,
you will have to pay your links maintenances (read Energy Man-
agement section for details about this). During the Preparation
Phase, nobody can cast spells but enchantment effects can be
triggered or activated, if they require you to manually activate
it. After you paid all maintenances, you draw a card from the top
of your deck.
Preparation Phase subphases are Energy recovery, Maintenante
and Drawing, in that order.
2. Combat Phase: this is where players can cast any spell. If it
isnt your Combat Phase, you can cast only Unstable and Sorcery
Spells. Damage done during this phase is applied immediately.
It doesnt stack and you dont need to wait until the end of this
phase to deal or receive the damage itself.
Combat Phase subphases are Spell Casting, Clean (discard/remove
used cards and links) and End Combat announcement.
3. End Phase: this is the phase where momentary efects banish,
where you must discard cards if you have more than 6 cards
in your hand and where some special effects trigger, such as
delayed effects. Nobody can cast spells during this phase.
End Phase subphases are Discard Excess Cards, Delayed Effects,
Endturn Effects.
4.4 Special game mechanics
Lets pay close attention to some special effects:
4.4.1 Interrupt spell casting:
This is a special effect where a target spell doesnt takes effect. You
can interrupt slower casting spells, or equal speed spells in the case
10
of unstable spells. If you successfully interrupt a spell, it is put in
the discard pile. Its effects never reach the game eld. To interrupt
a spell you must cast immediatelly your interrupt. If the opponent
casts a spell and you dont interrupt it, then you cannot interrupt it
later because the spell has been casted time ago.
In addition, when a spell is interrupted, all links used for that spell
are banished, so if you cast Fireblast and then Flameball, Flameball
will habe +1 to its damage thanks to the Fireblast link, but if the an
enemy player interrupts your Flameball, the Fireblast link will be ban-
ished too, so you cant save it for another spell.
4.4.2 Crosslinking spells
If you took a look at the cards list, you maybe noticed that there are
two types of links: normal links, denoted with a Link tag and special
links denoted with a Crosslink tag.
Right now, normal Links should be clear enough. But what is that
Crosslink thing? Very simple: they are links that allow you to add
one extra layer or thread to your new linked spell, if you want so.
Basically, a card with a Crosslink is a card that can be played without
triggering an existing link, but this new link must be used as soon as
you play any card without another crosslink.
You also probably noticed that Crosslink cards have a number next
to the Crosslink tag. That card number is the energy you must pay
to crosslink the card. So, if you want the Crosslink to not trigger the
previous link, you must pay that energy, otherwise, it will count as a
normal link.
Other than such energy cost, Crosslinks are exactly the same as
Link, and everything affecting Links, will affect Crosslinks too.
This may sound a bit complex at rst sight, but it is really simple.
Lets illustrate it with an example:
John has three cards in hand: Card1 has a normal link
tag, and Card2 has a crosslink tag, and Card3 doesnt have
any kind of link. He wants to get the maximum possible
damage out of his Card3, so it would be nice to apply to
link effects to it. Becuase he has a crosslink card, he can
do it. First, he casts Card1 with its normal link, that is
awaiting a new spell to link. But now, instead of casting
Card3, he casts Card2 that has a crosslink. This crosslink
allows John to choose between trigger or not the previous
link from Card1. He decides to not trigger it, so he pays
the crosslink energy cost and now he has two links in the
table, one from Card1 and the crosslink from Card2, but
now, Card3 doesnt have crosslink, so when he plays this
11
card, the Card1 link and the Card2 crosslink will both trig-
ger when Card3 is played, so actually he is applying two
links to a single card!!!
It may seem that Crosslinking is a very powerful tool, and it really
is if well used, but also take into account that crosslinking is usually
quite expensive, and the more crosslinks you cast, the less energy
you will have for your next turn, so activating a lot of crosslinks can
be counterproductive.
4.4.3 Banishing
Banishing is an effect that allows you to terminate the effects of an
Enchantment Spell.
Banishing an Enchantment means that such enchantment must be
put in the discard pile of the Enchantment owner and the effects of
the Enchantment are immediately terminated.
4.4.4 Transfering
This spell effect allows you to deal damage to any target and heal
you at the sae time. Any Spell with a Transfer effect will require you
to chose a target enemy. That enemy will see his/her health reduced
by a certain amount, and your health increased that same amount.
Transfering is not a source of damage, so it cannot be prevented,
but you can shield yourself from it with any Shielding spell. In this
case, you will receive health equal to the damage done, so if the
enemy is shielded for 2 damage and you transfer 3 health, then the
enemy will reduce his health by 1 and you will receive only 1 health
point.
4.4.5 Shielding
Some Spells, most of them Enchantment Spells, allow you to shield
agains any kind of health reduction effect such as damage or drain-
ing.
Shielding spells include a value, which is the shield health. While
a shield is up, your health cannot be reduced by any means (except
by spells that can bypass the shield). Any damage dealt to you is
instead done to the shield, which will see its health reduced. Once
the shields health becomes zero or less, the shield card is put in the
discard pile.
12
4.4.6 Delayed Effects
Some Spells have two effects but they do not happen simultaneous.
One of those effects is a Delayed Effect, which is an effect that will
happen at the end of the turn. For example, a Delayed Effect: 3
Fire Damage means that at the end of the turn, just when the player
announces that his turn ends, this effects will trigger.
Cards with delayed damage must be placed in the board, so no-
body forgets them, but by all means, they are not in play. You cant
interact with those cards, they cannot be interrupted or modied by
any means.
Also, delayed cards are not in the discard pile, think of it like a
place that nobody has access and that keeps the card in stasis until
the delayed effect is triggered. Once this happens, put the card in the
top of his owners discard pile and the delayed effect ends aswell.
Note that delayed effects are not spells, so you cannot interrupt
them.
4.4.7 Reecting Damage
Some cards have a Reect property. This means that such amount
of damage dealt to you is done back to the player how casted the
spell. Damage reected doesnt hit you. You can reect only dam-
age totals, not a part of damage, so for example if you are dealt 5
damage, you must use a Reect 5 or more, but using Reect 4 or less
wont reect any damage.
Also, you cant reect indirect damage or damage from sources
without owner. For example, a spell that deal 5 damage to all play-
ers cant be reected because that is not a damage targeted to you.
Also, spells like target discards x cards, and receives x damage can-
not be reected because that is not a damage targeted to you, but
rather a damage resulting from a game mechanic and it doesnt have
any owner. So basically, you can only reect damage from direct
damage spells such as Fireblast, for example.
You can also reect damage from sources where a player must
activate a game mechanic to deal you direct damage. Lets say an
Enchantment that says Pay 2: deal 3 damage, you can reect that
damage.
4.4.8 Combined Schools of Magic
Some spells belong to several different schools of magic, or they deal
damage belonging to two or more schools of magic. It is the case
of spells such as High Conductivity that belongs to Air and Water
schools of magic. This means that any Link or effect that affects any
of those schools of magic, will affect the spell. So for example, if you
13
have a link that reduces an air spell energy cost by 1, then such link
will affect High Conductivity.
Now, some spells belong to a single school of magic, but they deal
damage from a combination of two or more schools of magic. Ful-
minate spell is one of those spells. It deals Air and Fire damage, so
any link or effect that affects Air or Fire damage, will affect this cards
damage. For example, if I cast Fireblast and then Fulminate, this last
spell would deal 6 damage instead of 5 because Fireblast increases
Fire damage by 1.
14