How to play Aeon's End

Aeon's End is a cooperative deckbuilder for one to four players in which you and your fellow breach mages are the last defenders of Gravehold, the only city left standing. Each game pits your team against a Nemesis — a powerful boss with its own deck of attacks, minions, and powers — and victory means whittling that Nemesis down to zero life before it destroys you.

What sets Aeon's End apart from other deckbuilders is a pair of signature twists. First, your discard pile is never shuffled — when your draw deck runs out you simply flip the discard over, preserving the exact order you discarded. Second, turn order is driven by a randomized turn-order deck, so mages and the Nemesis interleave unpredictably each round. Both twists reward deliberate, forward-thinking play over reactive decisions.

Never played a deck-builder? The loop is friendlier than it sounds: you start with a small deck of weak cards, and each turn you play cards to gain aether, spend it on better cards from a shared market, and draw a fresh hand — so your deck visibly improves as the game goes on. Aeon's End then removes the shuffle from that loop: everything you discard keeps its order, which means that with a little care you can stack your own future turns. Your deck stops being a lottery and becomes a plan.

What's in the box, and what each piece does at the table:

• 8 player mats — one per breach mage. Each mat lists that mage's exact starting hand and deck, breach layout, life, and a signature ability that charges up during play — the mats differ enough that changing mages changes how the game feels.
• 4 nemesis mats (Rageborne, Carapace Queen, Prince of Gluttons, Crooked Mask) — the boss you fight: its starting life, its unique Unleash effect, any additional rules, extra setup on the back, and a 1–10 difficulty rating so you know what you're signing up for.
• 87 gem, 86 spell, and 30 relic cards — the player cards you buy to improve your deck: gems produce aether (the game's currency), spells are prepped into breaches and later cast for damage, relics fire an instant effect the moment you play them.
• 27 randomizer cards — one gray-bordered copy of each player card; deal them out to pick a random market instead of a curated one.
• 75 nemesis cards — the Nemesis's arsenal in three types: attacks resolve at once, minions stay in play and hurt you every nemesis turn until killed, and powers count down and detonate unless you pay their TO DISCARD price in time. Tiers 1–3 printed on each card make the deck escalate as the game goes on.
• 16 breach cards — four numbered breaches per mage, the conduits spells are cast through. Closed breaches rotate 90° each time you focus them and get cheaper to open permanently; an opened breach holds one prepped spell, turn after turn.
• 9 turn-order cards — builds the 6-card turn-order deck (always 4 player cards plus 2 nemesis cards): duplicates of Players 1–2 for small tables, one card per player at four, and a wild card used at three players.
• 40 life tokens (30 of value 1, 10 of value 5) — track each mage's life (10 to start) and the life of minions in play.
• 2 life dials — one for Gravehold (starts at 30) and one for the Nemesis (starts at the value on its mat — Rageborne begins at 70). The whole game is the race between these two dials.
• 21 charge tokens — bought for 2 aether each and slotted under your mage's ability; at full charges you may unleash that signature power.
• 10 power tokens — placed on nemesis power cards when they enter play; one comes off each nemesis turn, and the card resolves when the last one is removed.
• 15 Fury/husk tokens — nemesis-specific ammunition, used only against Rageborne (Fury) and Carapace Queen (husks).
• 4 player number tokens — mark who is Player 1–4 so the turn-order cards know whom they summon.
• 4 player aid cards — a phase-by-phase reference for the player turn.

Turns are drawn, not passed: after every turn ends, flip the top card of the turn-order deck to see who acts next — a mage or the Nemesis. When the deck runs out, reshuffle all six cards; across that reshuffle the Nemesis can act twice in a row, and no plan should depend on it not doing so.

On a mage's turn, resolve three phases in order:

1. Casting phase — spells prepped in opened breaches may be cast; spells sitting in closed breaches (prepped there when you focused them last turn) must be cast now. A cast spell goes on top of your discard and resolves its effect against the Nemesis or a single minion; some opened breaches add +1 damage to every spell cast from them.
2. Main phase — in any order, any number of times: play gems and relics from hand to gain aether; buy a card from the supply (it lands on top of your discard, not in your hand); pay 2 aether for a charge and, at full charges, trigger your mage's unique ability; focus a breach (rotate it 90° — you may prep to it this turn only) or open it outright, its cost dropping with every focus; prep a spell from hand to an opened or just-focused breach (one spell per breach); and resolve any "While prepped" spell effects or a nemesis power's "TO DISCARD:" cost. Unspent aether evaporates at end of turn — it cannot be saved or given away.
3. Draw phase — place the gems and relics you played on top of your discard in any order you choose (this, plus the no-shuffle rule, is how you sculpt your future hands), keep any unplayed cards, and draw back up to five. If your deck runs out mid-draw, flip your discard pile over without shuffling: it is your new deck, in exactly the order you built it.

On the Nemesis's turn, resolve its two phases: first the main phase — work through every minion and power already in play, oldest first: minions' persistent effects hit, and each power card loses one token, resolving when its last token comes off. Then the draw phase — reveal the top nemesis card: attacks resolve immediately, minions and powers enter play to menace the coming turns. Whenever any card says Unleash, resolve this Nemesis's signature effect from its mat. And if a mage falls to 0 life, they are exhausted: Unleash twice, the mage destroys one of their breaches and loses all charges. They keep taking turns — but can never heal, and any damage they would suffer is doubled and dealt to Gravehold instead.

A stretch of play (Ana and Beto vs. Rageborne). The turn-order deck reveals Player 2: Beto must cast the Amplify Vision he prepped into a focused breach last turn — 2 damage to Rageborne — then plays four Crystals, spends the 4 aether on a Searing Ruby that lands on top of his discard, and draws back up to five. The next flip is Nemesis: the Woven Sky power in play loses its final token and resolves — Unleash gives Rageborne a Fury token, and any player suffers 4 damage; Ana volunteers, dropping to 6 life. Then Ana's own card comes up: she plays two Crystals, pays 2 aether for a charge toward her ability, and preps a Spark to her open breach — next turn's counterpunch, already loaded.

The team wins the moment the Nemesis's life dial reaches 0 — or, rarer and sweeter, when the nemesis deck is empty and it has no minions or powers left in play: you outlasted it. You lose if Gravehold drops to 0 life or if every mage is exhausted; some nemeses add an extra loss condition on their mat. There are no scores and no tiebreakers — the table stands or falls together, and the game ends immediately when any of these conditions is met.

Strategically, the key is coordination: spells must be prepped a turn before they fire and turn order is unpredictable, so the team should agree who is building toward a burst of damage, who is banking charges, and who keeps Gravehold standing. Managing your discard order — consciously stacking the cards you'll want next on top of the pile — is what separates good sessions from great ones, and a fully charged mage ability held for exactly the right moment often decides the game.