Smash Up: The Obligatory Cthulhu Set Rules
Smash Up: The Obligatory Cthulhu Set Rules
This expansion uses the normal Smash Up rules and adds the shared Madness deck. The four factions are Elder Things, Innsmouth, Minions of Cthulhu, and Miskatonic University.
Madness deck
Set out the 30-card Madness deck face up and separate from all faction decks. A player only draws or returns Madness when an ability specifically says to. If the Madness deck is empty, ignore further instructions to draw Madness until one or more Madness cards are returned.
A Madness card is an Action. When played, choose its normal card-draw option or return it to the Madness deck. Unless it is explicitly returned to the Madness deck, a Madness card that leaves play goes to its current controller's discard pile. For Madness, the current controller is also treated as its owner.
Madness and final scoring
When the normal end-of-game condition is reached, count every Madness card each player controls in all relevant areas, including hand, deck, discard pile, buried cards, stored cards, and stasis. Each player loses 1 VP for every two Madness cards, rounding down. Compare the resulting modified VP totals. If players tie, the tied player with fewer Madness cards wins; a further tie is shared.
Elder Things
Elder Things pressure opponents into taking Madness while using that Madness to power large minions and disruptive effects.
Eldest Thing: When played, you must successfully destroy two of your other minions or put Eldest Thing on the bottom of your deck. Its protection from other players' cards applies once it remains in play.
Shoggoth: Its own power counts toward the total-power check. Opponents may accept Madness to avoid the destruction effect.
Power of Madness: Other players shuffle their discard piles into their decks even if the named Action is not found or no cards are discarded.
Spreading Horror: Each minion played from your discard pile by this one resolution must go to a different base.
Unfathomable Goals: Check the revealed Madness totals at the moment the card resolves. Madness drawn later because of a minion you played from this effect does not retroactively qualify you for the extra Action.
Antarctic Base: “One minion here each turn” limits minion plays, not movement or other ways a minion may arrive unless the effect specifically says it is played.
Innsmouth
Innsmouth is built around many copies of The Locals and rewards concentrating minions with the same name.
The Locals: Reveal the top three cards of your deck, take all revealed The Locals into your hand, and put the other revealed cards on the bottom of the deck. The order of those bottomed cards should be preserved or chosen as the effect permits.
Mysteries of the Deep: The three same-named minions must all be on one base. The additional Madness draw is optional.
The Deep Ones: Its power increase applies only to eligible minions already in play when the Action resolves; later minions do not inherit the bonus.
In Plain Sight: Current AEG wording protects your minions of printed power 2 or less, so temporary power boosts do not remove that protection.
Dagon: This later official Titan may be played on your turn at a base where you have at least two minions with the same name. It gives power for your same-named groups and its Talent plays the extra minion at Dagon's base.
Minions of Cthulhu
This faction deliberately takes Madness in exchange for extra Actions, VP, recursion, and disruption. Managing when Madness is useful and when to return it is a central part of the faction.
Cthulhu's Chosen: Its before-scoring Special can trigger whenever any base is about to score, not only the base containing that Chosen. Each Chosen can draw at most one Madness per scoring trigger.
Servitor of Cthulhu: If destruction is prevented, the rest of the ability can still put an Action from your discard pile on your deck. A Servitor destroyed at R'lyeh can satisfy either the Servitor ability or R'lyeh's start-of-turn ability, not both from the same destruction.
Altar to Cthulhu: Current AEG wording limits the extra-Action trigger to once per turn.
Complete the Ritual: When its start-of-turn replacement happens, ordinary player-owned cards go to the bottoms of their owners' decks. Cards that cannot legally go into a player deck, such as Monsters or Treasures from Munchkin, go to their proper discard piles; Titans are removed from play.
Furthering the Cause: It gives 1 VP if at least one opposing minion at that base was destroyed during the turn, not 1 VP per destroyed minion.
Madness Unleashed: Discard all chosen Madness cards first, then perform the draws and extra-Action benefits. You cannot start drawing and then decide to discard additional Madness.
R'lyeh: You gain the VP only if the minion is actually destroyed. Protection that prevents the destruction also prevents the VP.
Cthulhu: This later official Titan is played by taking Madness as specified on the Titan. It gains counters from later Madness plays/draws; the Madness used to play Cthulhu does not give Cthulhu those initial counters.
Miskatonic University
Miskatonic University uses Madness as a temporary research resource, then discards or returns it to reduce the end-game penalty.
Professor: Discarding a Madness means putting it in your discard pile, not returning it to the Madness deck. After doing so, you may take the extra Action, extra minion, or both as the current card allows.
Jinkies!: The returned Madness cards may come from your hand, your discard pile, or a combination of both.
That's So Crazy...: Its power bonus applies only to your minions already in play when the Action resolves.
...It Just Might Work: The same timing applies: later minions do not receive the earlier power bonus. Madness “discarded” by this card goes to your discard pile rather than the Madness deck.
Things Best Not Known: The temporary power increase lasts through the end of the turn.
Arkham University: After playing a minion there, the active player may draw two Madness, discard a Madness from hand, or do neither. When one of the two listed Madness options is chosen, the extra Action is available as described by the base.
Asylum: A Madness card placed in the box is out of play and does not count against that player's final Madness total.
Power counters
A +1 power counter on a minion gives that minion +1 power while the counter remains there. Moving a counter moves that effect. Counters on Actions, bases, buried cards, or other non-minions have no effect unless a card specifically says otherwise.
Accessibility play notes
Keep the Madness deck in a fixed, labeled position and announce its remaining count when it becomes low. Whenever Madness is drawn, discarded, returned to the Madness deck, buried, stored, or placed in the box, say where it went. This is especially important because the final VP penalty depends on location and control.
For Innsmouth, announce all three revealed card names and the order of cards placed on the bottom of the deck. For Elder Things and Miskatonic University, announce each opponent's Madness choice before resolving dependent effects. For Titans, say when the Titan enters play, its base, its current power counters, and every move or removal.