Objective:

Build a powerful team of characters by strategically managing your hand and deploying them to various locations. Acquire new characters to gain bonuses and expand your influence. Score points based on your character collection, resource accumulation, and strategic achievements to become the ultimate leader of the Red Rising universe.

Game Setup

1. Place the game board on the table.

2. Prepare the Character Deck: Shuffle the character cards and place them face down on the board. Place the Rising die next to the deck.

3. Set Up Locations: Place two character cards face-up on each location (Jupiter, Mars, Luna, and The Institute). Only the card's core information should be visible. Players can view cards on locations at any time.

4. Create Starting Hands: Draw five character cards to form your private hand.

5. Choose a House: Randomly select a house tile. Take the corresponding reference card, Fleet token, and Influence tokens.

6. Place Game Components:

   • Place your Fleet token on the starting position of the Fleet Track.

   • Create a supply of Helium tokens.

   • Place the Sovereign token to represent the Society leader.

   • Place your 10 Influence tokens as your personal supply.

   • For two-player games, place 3 neutral Influence tokens on The Institute.

7. Determine the Starting Player: The player with House Apollo starts first, or randomly choose a starting player. This player receives the first-player token.

Gameplay

On your turn, choose to Lead or Scout.

Lead Action

• Deploy: Choose a character from your hand and place it face-up on any location. Activate the character's deploy ability (if applicable).

• Gain a Card: Choose to either:

  • Take the top card from a location you didn't deploy to this turn and gain its bonus.

  • Take the top card from the deck, roll the Rising die, and gain the corresponding bonus.
    

Scout Action

• Reveal: Look at the top card of the deck.

• Place: Place the revealed card face-up on any location.

• Gain Bonus: Gain the bonus of the location where you placed the card.

Notes:

• You can only gain a location's bonus by Leading or Scouting.

• Some character abilities may modify these actions.

• The deck becomes unavailable if it's empty.

• You can still take a Lead or Scout action even if you have no cards in hand.
  

Edge Cases:

• If multiple Abort Actions are played simultaneously, the first one played in clockwise order takes effect.

• If a card instructs you to move or place a card, it does not count as a deploy action.

• 0 is considered an even number.

• Actions that involve trading resources can only be performed once per turn.

Location Bonuses

Gaining a card from a location or placing a card on a location grants you a bonus:

• Jupiter: Advance your Fleet token one space on the Fleet Track (unless you're at the end).

• Mars: Acquire one Helium token.

• Luna: Gain or retain the Sovereign token, triggering your house ability.

• The Institute: Place one Influence token on the Institute (up to a maximum of 10).

• Deck: If you draw from the deck instead of a location, roll the Rising die to determine a bonus (subject to the same rules as location bonuses).
  

House Abilities: When you gain the Sovereign token, trigger your house's ability. This can occur from gaining a card from Luna, a card effect, or rolling Luna on the Rising die. Resolve the ability if possible.

Game End and Scoring

• The end of the game is triggered when all 3 of these conditions are met by any combination of players OR when any 2 conditions are met by the same player: A player has 7+ Helium tokens A player has 7+ Influence on the Institute A player reaches or surpasses 7 on the Fleet Track JUP
  

• Finish taking turns until each player has taken the same number of turns in the game. If Apollo is an active house, they take the last turn (this is an extra turn). Use the scorepad to tally each player’s score step by step in this order:
  

• “At end of game” abilities: Starting with the first player, trigger all of your end-of-game abilities in an order of your choosing. Continue clockwise with the next player until all players have triggered these abilities.
  

• Character Cards (Core value & End-game bonus points): Look at the cards in your hand. Add together the core value of each card (upper left) and points gained or lost from end-game bonus points (bottom).
  

• Fleet Track: Score points based on your position on the Fleet Track (0-43 points).
  

• Helium: Gain 3 points per helium token
  

• Sovereignty: Gain 10 points if you have the Sovereign token.
  

• Influence Scoring:

  Players earn points based on their Influence at The Institute:

  • Most Influence: Earns 4 points per Influence token.

  • Second Most Influence: Earns 2 points per Influence token.

  • All Others: Earn 1 point per Influence token.

  Note: In two-player games, three neutral Influence tokens are included in the scoring to simulate a third player's influence.
  

• Excess Cards Penalty:

  For each card held in your hand beyond seven, you lose 10 points. This penalty applies in addition to any points earned from those cards. A smaller hand size promotes efficient card management and strategic focus.
  

The player with the highest score at the end of the game wins! A score of 300 or more points is considered excellent. In case of a tie, the player holding the Sovereign token wins. If no tied player has the Sovereign token, the game is a shared victory.