Tabletop games
The Quacks of Quedlinburg
Brew the most powerful potions over nine rounds, drawing ingredients from your bag without letting too many cherry bombs blow up your pot.
- players
- 2–4
- minutes
- 45
You’ll need the game box. Marquoir sums up the rules and keeps score.
Setup
- Each player takes a pot, a droplet, a flask and a bag filled with the starting ingredients, including several white cherry bombs.
- Choose the ingredient books (the beginner side for a first game).
- Score markers start at zero.
How to play
- Reveal a fortune teller card, then everyone fills their pot at the same time.
- Draw one chip at a time and move forward as many spaces as its value, counting from the last chip placed.
- If the white cherry bombs in the pot add up to more than 7, the pot explodes.
- You may stop whenever you like. The flask lets you put a cherry bomb back in the bag.
- Evaluation: the player furthest ahead rolls the bonus die, ingredients trigger their effects, a ruby for each player whose scoring space shows one, then victory points and ingredient purchases.
Scoring
- Each round, you score the victory points of the scoring space just after your last chip.
- A player whose pot exploded chooses: victory points or purchases, not both.
- Rat tails help players who are behind to start further along.
- At the end of round 9: 1 point per 5 coins and 1 point per 2 remaining rubies.
End of the game
- The game lasts nine rounds; the most victory points wins.
- In a tie, the player whose pot went furthest wins.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly happens when a pot explodes?
The player stops drawing. During evaluation, they choose between scoring the victory points of their space or buying ingredients with their coins. The other effects apply as normal.
What are rubies for?
Refilling your flask or moving your starting droplet forward, so you start further along in the following rounds.